Down to The Wire For Mashpee Boys

By: Rich Maclone
Published: 10/29/10

Good or bad, things have always been interesting for the Mashpee High School boys’ soccer team this season.

The Falcons went into last night’s game at Carver needing a win, and nothing but a win, to qualify for the MIAA state tournament. At 7-8-2, the Falcons found themselves two points shy of a spot in the big dance.

Coach Ed Furtek said, in a way, the tournament had already begun for his team. “If we don’t win, we’re done, so it’s a tournament game for us; it’s that simple,” the coach said.

The pressure was on for the Falcons because they were upended on that road at East Bridgewater on Wednesday in a lopsided game, 5-0. EB came out firing early and built up a 3-0 lead by the break. Things got no better for them in the second half, with the home team getting two more.

Two plays summed up how things went for the Falcons. On one play, goalie Spencer Perlmuter dove to the turf to make a remarkable save, but the ball found its way to the foot of an EB forward who tipped in the rebound to ruin the highlight for the Falcons. Later on Mitchell Guzman got free, behind the keeper, and had an open goal to shoot at, but the ball hit high off his shooting leg and sailed over the net.

“That’s the kind of day it was for us,” he said. “The ball did not break our way. Hopefully, we got that out of our system.”

On Monday the team came close to picking up a great win but had to settle for a 3-3 tie. After falling behind by two goals early, the Falcons rallied all the way back and got the lead in the second half on a fantastic play that saw the Falcons execute perfectly a set play they’d been working on recently during practice.

With the game knotted at 2-2, the Falcons dug into their bag of tricks for an indirect kick play that they’ve been honing. The play allowed Nate Peterson to get in behind the wall and take a feed from Jake Van Gelder to score the go-ahead goal, making it 3-2. “It was great to see it come to fruition,” Furtek said.

Unfortunately the Rough Riders from Harwich came back to tie it up with only three minutes left.Mashpee’s other goals in the game came from Matt Jalowy, who was set up by Scott Matoin, and Peterson, who was assisted by Jalowy.

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